How does Thursday's jaw-dropping deal at the NBA trade deadline -- sending Brooklyn Nets star James Harden to the Philadelphia 76ers for Ben Simmons, Seth Curry and two future first-round picks -- change the balance of power in the Eastern Conference?
A midseason deal between two conference rivals with championship aspirations is unprecedented in modern NBA history, and the implications are fascinating. Simmons will assuredly return to action after sitting out the entire 2021-22 season to date, while Harden is reunited with Sixers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey, who previously brought him to the Houston Rockets.
How well will Simmons fit in Brooklyn alongside Kevin Durant and (at least in road games) Kyrie Irving after his on-court career in Philadelphia ended in disappointing fashion? How much of a risk are the 76ers taking by trading for Harden before he's eligible to sign one of the largest contracts the league has ever seen? And what did the undercard of the trade struck hours before the NBA trade deadline say about which team was more motivated to make a deal?
Let's sort through the myriad considerations of the trade centered around Harden and Simmons.
The deal
Brooklyn Nets get: Ben Simmons, Seth Curry, Andre Drummond, 2022 first-round pick (right to defer until 2023), 2027 first-round pick (top-8 protected)
Philadelphia 76ers get: James Harden, Paul Millsap
Nets: B+
It was 392 days ago that the Nets brought Harden to Brooklyn to complete their superteam. In that span, they've gone from championship favorites to second-round exit to not having Irving for the first two months of this season because of New York City's COVID-19 vaccine mandate to nine-game losing streak to trading Harden.
Life in the NBA comes at you fast.
In the short term, the Nets' odds of winning a title have decreased -- down to +425 from +400, according to Caesars Sportsbook. If Brooklyn could count on Harden being fully engaged for the postseason, a duo of him and Kevin Durant would have given the Nets a realistic path to the championship even if it started in the play-in tournament. Remember, we saw Durant and Harden playing on a severe hamstring injury nearly take out the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks last spring with Irving playing no role because of injury in the last three games of that series.
Still, Brooklyn had to acknowledge that being the favorite to win it all this season was no longer realistic, given Irving's ineligibility for home games and Joe Harris' uncertain return from ankle surgery. The Eastern Conference also looks far deeper this season with five teams besides the Nets on track for at least 48 wins, compared with three teams at that level including Brooklyn in last year's 72-game season.
That reality surely made it easier to make a trade that lands an All-Star who's seven years younger than Harden, plus a valuable outside shooter in Curry who helps cushion the loss of Harris.
The most fascinating piece of this trade for the Nets is how Simmons will fit. Irving's availability complicates that process because Simmons may have to play different roles in home and road games. With Irving out of the lineup, Brooklyn probably wants the ball in Simmons' hands as the team's best playmaker. On the road, Irving and Durant become primary ballhandlers, and Simmons moves off the ball. It was easier when Harden was the point guard home or away.
Ideally, I think Simmons would play more or less the role that Bruce Brown Jr. has for the Nets the last two seasons as a guard defender who floats into open spaces on offense and acts as a screener. Philadelphia tried that at times with Simmons, most notably during the 2020 bubble restart, until a knee injury brought that experiment to a halt after just three games.
Simmons is more dangerous than Brown when making plays off of short rolls and gives Brooklyn more size defensively -- something that will help it play undersized shooting guards Curry and Patty Mills, possibly even together. The question is what happens in home games.
Do the Nets trust Curry and Mills to initiate the offense? Does Durant serve as point forward, adding even more to his plate? Or is Simmons in that role, one that has highlighted his reluctance to shoot from the perimeter and go to the free throw line in past postseasons?
The timing of this trade doesn't help Steve Nash and his coaching staff, who have already had a year unlike any before. Brooklyn has 26 games left in the regular season after Thursday. Durant, already ruled out of the All-Star Game, surely won't play until after the break. It's unclear when Simmons might first suit up. And of the 23 games the Nets play after the break, Irving is currently eligible for just 10 of them. That's not much time for Brooklyn to build chemistry.
Defensively, Simmons should be a massive upgrade for the Nets. After showing enough faculty with a switch-heavy scheme to be competent defensively during the 2021 playoffs, they've frequently been flambéed by quality competition this season. Milwaukee scored more than 124 points per 100 possessions in both head-to-head wins, per NBA Advanced Stats.
As a Defensive Player of the Year candidate, Simmons was overrated last season. His on-ball defense isn't as valuable as having a top-tier rim protector, but in a playoff setting his versatility will be a huge plus.
Down the road, swapping Harden for Simmons gives the Nets more options. Trading Harden anywhere but Philly was going to be a challenge because of his contract. We already know from the past six months' of trade rumors that Simmons has value elsewhere if Brooklyn doesn't like the fit.
The Nets also recouped two of the three first-round picks they sent the Rockets for Harden, allowing them to sweeten deals in a way that wasn't previously possible. And it's possible that Harris becomes easier for Brooklyn to move with Curry as a replacement already on the roster.
Add it up and there's no question the Nets won this trade from a value perspective. Just how much they sacrificed in terms of short-term championship equity is tougher to tell based on Harden's mindset. Brooklyn also strengthened a competitor in the East for this year's playoffs, an important part of the calculation. Given all that, I understand why the Nets were willing to hold out and make the deal more favorable for them than a straight swap.
76ers: C-
In the end, Morey got his guy. At what price?
Despite the incentives for Brooklyn to make a trade now, the pull seemed stronger for the 76ers for a variety of reasons. Although they've played well enough without Simmons to stay in contention in the East -- Philadelphia is just 2.5 games out of first place and now three up on the Nets -- the Sixers were going to have a hard time competing in the playoffs while getting nothing from his roster spot.
Given star center Joel Embiid is in the middle of his prime (he'll turn 28 next month) and as healthy as he's ever been, having played 42 of a possible 54 games thus far, Philly had urgency to get him the help necessary to compete for a championship. From an offensive standpoint, Harden is the best teammate Embiid has ever had, although it will be interesting to see how the two players fit together.
Harden has always paired best with floor spacers and lob threats at center. Embiid isn't quite either of those. He's rolled to the hoop on ball screens just 16 times per 100 possessions this season, according to Second Spectrum tracking, a rate far lower than Brooklyn's centers. The lowest of that group is LaMarcus Aldridge at 30 per 100 possessions.
There's no doubt Embiid can drag his defender to the perimeter to space for the isolations Harden favored by the end of his time in Houston, but that feels like a waste of the league's leading scorer at 29.4 PPG. Same with Harden dumping the ball into Embiid in the post, something he can do but is overqualified for as a primary option.
Assuming 76ers coach Doc Rivers staggers their minutes, part of the value of having both Embiid and Harden is that one of them should be on the floor at all times -- particularly useful when one or the other does miss time. Philadelphia's offensive rating has sunk by 7.7 points per 100 possessions with Embiid on the bench, taking the Sixers from outscoring opponents by 7.1 points per 100 possessions to a minus-2.3 net rating according to NBA Advanced Stats.
Still, to maximize their partnership, Harden and Embiid will have to develop two-man chemistry that utilizes both Harden's mastery of pick-and-roll angles and Embiid's ability to threaten defenses in a variety of manners. On the plus side, switching pick-and-rolls against them is unthinkable given Embiid's matchup advantages against smaller defenders in the post and Harden's ability to cook slower defenders 1-on-1.
How Harden fits defensively is more of a concern. The best defenses featuring Harden, both with the Rockets and the Nets, have relied heavily on switching. He's effective using his strength to counter bigger opponents and struggles in space. Often, that's meant an initial defensive assignment against big men for Harden, but that now means asking Philadelphia forward Tobias Harris to defend on a perimeter. Switching in lineups with Embiid doesn't make much sense, so Harden will surely be asked to play conventional pick-and-roll defense, a challenge for him.
Add it up, and I still have Milwaukee and the Miami Heat as the two favorites to win the Eastern Conference this year. That's an issue because the Sixers need immediate success to justify the contract they'll presumably hand Harden this offseason. Assuming Harden picks up his $47.4 million player option for 2022-23, he'll be eligible to sign a four-year, $223 million extension once extend-and-trade restrictions expire in six months.
That extension would take Harden through age 37, a point at which he's unlikely to still be an All-NBA type of contributor. We have more than enough evidence in recent years of how big extensions for aging guards can go wrong. As compared to the worst examples, Harden's shooting ability protects his value to a certain degree, but he's already shown marked decline this season at age 32.
In a vacuum, I'd probably rather have Simmons on his current contract than Harden on his next one, which could make everything else Philadelphia gave up painful. Curry was an important role player for the Sixers, who now find themselves relying on weaker shooters to fill out their wing rotation.
Philadelphia did manage to hold on to recent first-round picks Tyrese Maxey and Matisse Thybulle in the negotiations. Maxey seems like a possible trade candidate down the line given he's most valuable with the ball in his hands, though his development as a shooter (40% on 3s this season) makes him a plausible option to team with Harden in the backcourt.
The cost of keeping young talent was a pair of future first-round picks. Giving Brooklyn the option to defer this year's first-round pick to 2023 has a certain degree of downside for the 76ers if either Embiid or Harden misses an extended period due to injuries. Philadelphia got more favorable protection on the 2027 first-round pick, which can't be any higher than ninth and may not convey at all, though it's still possible the Sixers send a lottery pick at that point.
Ultimately, I'd rather do this deal than keep Simmons and hope to trade him this summer. I'm not sure I prefer it to what else might have been available for Philadelphia to upgrade this year's team without the long-term risk of Harden's next contract.